UP401 How To Win A Cannes Lions for Sport in 2024: Inside the Jury Room

Sport was a big presence in the annual Cannes Lions Festival last week. 

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the top of the tree when it comes to showcasing the relationship between creative ideas and sport. There were 665 entries from 41 countries vying for the coveted prizes. 

So what’s winning awards this year, why are they winning, what are the big themes and trends, what does it mean to be Cannes-worthy and what can the rest of us learn from the judging process.

We’re very fortunate to have the chair of this year’s Entertainment Lions for Sport jury, Louise Johnson, CEO of Fuse to guide us, along with two of her fellow jury members. 

Asmirh Davis is founding partner of creative agency Majority from Atlanta, which is backed by NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal.

Ben Williams is Global Chief Creative Experience Officer at TBWA\Worldwide.

The list of winners is here

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Transcript

How to Win A Cannes Lion For Sport in 2024 - Inside the Jury Room

[00:00:00] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. 

[00:00:06] The Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity, which took place in the south of France last week is the top of the tree when it comes to showcasing the relationship between creative ideas and sport, and sport was a big presence across the festival. 

So what's winning awards. Why are they winning? 

[00:00:23] What are the big themes and trends and what does it mean to be can worthy? And finally, what can the rest of us learn from that judging process? We're very fortunate to have the chair of this year's entertainment lions for sport jury Louise Johnson has chief executive officer of FUSE to guide us along with two of her fellow jury members. Asmirh Davis is founding partner of the creative agency, Majority based in Atlanta and is backed by the NBA. 

[00:00:52] Legend, Shaquille O'Neal and Ben Williams is global chief creative experience officer at TBWA Worldwide. 

[00:01:02] Richard Gillis UP: Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. 

[00:01:05] And you can join our community of tens of thousands of people. By signing up to our weekly newsletter on sub stack, which goes out every Thursday. 

[00:01:14] Or find us in the usual places, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tik, TOK, and Instagram on Unofficial Partner. 

[00:01:23] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: By the way, I was supposed to be there.

[00:01:25] Louise Johnson, FUSE: I know what happened.

[00:01:26] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: I was supposed to be, I got, I got a call about. Sort of two or three weeks before the event saying, and it was to do with Guinness in the Premier League.

[00:01:35] And they were announcing that that week. 

[00:01:38] And then it 

[00:01:38] was going to be, and then, and the initial thing was going to be on the beach with Gary Neville and whoever it is from Diageo and, or Guinness. And then you've got a call.

[00:01:47] It's a sort of Alan Partridge, Sue Cook can't make it. Gary Neville, it turns out was at the Euros, so he's in Germany, so he's not going to be there. So the idea of, you know, so it started to then fade away, which, you know, it was a shame for everyone. I was looking forward to it, but yeah, but it it looked good 

[00:02:02] Louise Johnson, FUSE: was fantastic. I've never seen so much sports at Cannes, and I've been going to Cannes for a good 10 years. I think Ben has as well. And it was just everywhere. Like if you, on schedule, in terms of the actual category and the amount of entries that were put forward by advertisers, but off schedule, in terms of the cabanas huge activations and the Kelsey brothers talking. It was, you know, just everything, the great and the good. Then you had FIFA had the beach for the first time there. 

[00:02:30] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: always popular. 

[00:02:31] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Yeah, exactly. That was actually quite, quite popular. loads of legends. And then you also have the women's. Sport House by Axios as well up in the hills overlooking Cannes. Plus, you know, 20, I think 20 plus female athletes talking throughout the whole week and male athletes. It was just incredible. And then you also had, you know, the Olympic torch going down the croisette on the cheese day with Halle Berry and some other French, , celebrities, plus the Euros going on in the background.

[00:03:04] It's just, it was phenomenal, the, how much sport was there, and Cannes Lions is taking it very seriously.

[00:03:10] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: feels like that. I got a sense last time I was there that it was on the up, but nowhere near the scale of it was this year. It feels like there's a, something's happening. We might get into what, why that's happening but Lou, I just want you to introduce your fellow panelists.

[00:03:24] Just give us a sense of who we're going to be talking to today.

[00:03:28] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Okay, great. So, you know me, the global CEO of Fuse, and I was lucky enough to be president of the Entertainment for Sports Committee. I had an incredible jury with nine other members and two of them are here today with us. So first up I have Asmir Davis, who's the founding partner and chief strategy officer of Majority, based in Atlanta in the states. And I also have Ben Williams, who's the global chief creative officer at TVWA Global.

[00:03:58] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Brilliant. So let's just, so the listener can sort of gauge, who you are. Asmir, what, just give us a sense. , what do you do all day? What's your job? give us an idea. What does the agency do? What's the, give us an idea of clients.

[00:04:11] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Sure. So, we're a creative agency. We're about three and a half years old, so we're still very much in startup mode. But the scale of the clients that we work with, our primary clients on a day to day basis, I serve as a CSO. So that's both as the leading the strategy discipline for the work we do for our clients, like the NBA G League for Sprite, for Fanta uh, for GM for Dove just the list goes on but also the strategy for our, our business overall.

[00:04:42] So we are a creative agency, but the thing that makes us different is that we're Based on a diversity led talent model. Essentially what that means is we are committed to 75 percent of our entire team across our organization at all levels and all disciplines will come from underrepresented groups within the advertising industry.

[00:05:02] So that's based on race, gender, ethnicity, identity. And we, since our inception have been well over 85 percent of our team comes from some minority. quote, unquote, minority group within the industry. We also are unique in that one of our founding partners is pretty popular in sport that is Shaquille O'Neal. He is an original partner for our, for our organization and was on board with remit. And as you know, is, is also very heavily involved in advertising and marketing himself.

[00:05:40] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Thank you. , so when a client comes to you and that's your position in the marketplace, can I just, what's, what do they get? What, what are they buying into? When they come to you for, I think, what are they coming to you for, I guess, is the question.

[00:05:53] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Sure. So they're coming to us for big creative ideas, but specifically creative ideas that are not only going to connect with audiences of today who are more diverse than ever, but going to put the brand itself in culture. So, you know, our thesis is that in order to make big creative that's going to connect with audiences, that's going to put your brand in the cultural conversation, the people at the center of making those creative ideas from start to finish, Have to be representative of the world that we live in and be the cultural purveyors of the the industry and

[00:06:37] the places that the brands want to be a part of.

[00:06:40] And the way that you do that is you create diverse teams that makes it authentic, that makes it real, and that makes it not reactive to culture, but moving with culture.

[00:06:50] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Right. Okay. Ben, I'm going to ask you the same sort of question. 

[00:06:53] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: I'm the Global Chief Creative Officer of TVWA, which is a mini network in terms of creative agencies. So we have over a hundred agencies that I work really closely with, so each one of those agencies has a Chief Creative Officer who's In the weeds day to day. And then I sort of, oversee and work with those CCOs on clients ranging from Apple to McDonald's to Adidas and beyond.

[00:07:16] So, my role, my day to day is sort of, you know, making sure that we're all pointed as a, as a network in the same direction and going after the same things from a creative perspective. But then also getting into the weeds and working, you know, really closely with the likes of Adidas and McDonald's and Nissan on, on key projects and initiatives.

[00:07:32] So, you know, my, my sort of expertise probably over the last 15 years is working really closely with Nike and Adidas. And so, whether that's creating a next campaign or developing a new You product or services sort of working, you know, a little bit of the things that Asmir was saying was like really understanding the culture and being authentic to culture and reflecting the world that we live in, but also sort of working through what does the future hold for some of these companies and their brands and how, how do they show up in ways that are, you know, authentic and true to, in the case of Adidas, true to sport and the future of sport.

[00:08:02] So, yeah, creative designer by trade, but you know, sort of a broader set of creatives. Under my sort of reit.

[00:08:09] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay. And how much of it is sport do you think in terms of just the, day to day? Are you, obviously we've added, that's a Nike, I'm assuming quite a bit of it.

[00:08:18] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm spending I don't know, I wanna say 70% of my time working on Adidas right now, and sort of I get pulled, you know, that percentage changes day to day. But yeah, working really closely with Adidas right now, we're kind of rebooting their brand platform from, you know, impossible is nothing, which we. Developed probably 20 or so years ago to to a new platform and moving that into the world of um, sport, you know, tomorrow and, and beyond. So as the world cup, you know, moves to North America. So what does it, what's a North American point of view around soccer or football and things like that. So they're just helping them kind of shape the brand for the future.

[00:08:50] So we're working, you know, 2025 work right now, but we're starting to. Unpick and work at what does 2026 look like? So we're always working in these sort of, you know, six months to 18 month kind of windows of time looking into the future but really developing what does the world of sport look like and having a Point of view based on you know What culture is telling us what the world of sports telling us and the signals that we're getting but also knowing the kind of the cadence of sport and what's coming down the road to inform that

[00:09:16] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay, right. Luke, what was your job? what is expected of you? What's the brief that you're given when you get the, when you get this gig?

[00:09:26] Louise Johnson, FUSE: When you get the gig it was basically to set the criteria for which all the work needs to be judged. So in addition to you know, the, the waiting that the organizers would give on a piece of work, It's up to the president to set those criteria of which we had 665 entries from 41 countries enter.

[00:09:48] So it's my job really to, I know, welcome the jury. Set that out from the outset, which was a good sort of 6, 8, 6 to eight weeks ago before you start judging that work at home. Then when you get into the actual judging room, you've got to then elegantly get to a short list on day one, which I naively thought that we were going to be in and out by seven o'clock, but lasted until 11.

[00:10:11] Booked dinner, everything, you know, obviously that had to be all cancelled. And then you have to, you have a very big responsibility of Getting the shortlist to the medals and that includes bronze, silver, gold, and of course, most importantly, the Grand Prix. Now you've got to be able to facilitate that conversation between nine very talented but very opinionated creatives and strategists in the room. So making sure that everybody has their voice all the different nationalities and, and, Countries are represented in that room. And I think that's a really important thing that we all learned. Having those voices from different countries is really important because you might be looking at a piece of work and, you know, from a, as a Brit, I might not understand it. But then when somebody from Portugal is talking about the cultural nuances, you're like, ah, okay, I get it. That is so important. So being able to facilitate and empower everybody to have their voice making sure nobody's putting any agendas forward. And we had a fantastic group. No one did that.

[00:11:14] We've heard horror stories in the past, but the 

[00:11:16] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: do you mean of commercial agendas? People putting their own network stuff in and all of that palaver?

[00:11:23] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Exactly. I don't think that happens now, but I think in the past it's been yeah, we've heard a few stories of people ganging up and trying to, you know, get so and so pieces of work through. But we had absolutely none of that. We had such a fantastic group which now is a new peer group and friends for life.

[00:11:40] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: are quite intimidating, Lou. So you probably, people don't want to try and try it on with you. Also, nine, nine creatives. I mean, that sounds like an absolute nightmare. That sounds like a sitcom, but it also sounds like a, you know, having a couple in the room is bad enough when they're arguing. Nine of them, jeepers.

[00:11:55] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Yeah. 

[00:11:56] Louise Johnson, FUSE: I know, I was intimidated going into that room.

[00:12:01] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Lou did an amazing job of wrangling us, I think 

[00:12:03] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Yes, she did. 

[00:12:04] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: just the respect, the respect of opinion was just first and foremost, it was great.

[00:12:08] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: So take us through then. Let's just quickly we're not going to obviously cover all of the, All of the work and we're going to champion, look at the stuff that won and we, you know, we'll, we'll flag that. I'm wondering about, so the shortlisting process, because obviously everyone, people listening to this, a lot of them will be in the sort of sport marketing, sport meets creative.

[00:12:33] They'll be either working on the client side or the working agencies. And really what they want to know is what's winning. Why is it winning? How can I steal the good stuff? Yeah. And you know, that's, that's, that's basically what can, you know, we're all into, and then there are sort of broader themes that we can pick apart, but just take us inside the process.

[00:12:52] How do you get from 665 to what's the shortlist? 12?

[00:12:58] Louise Johnson, FUSE: So the short list, well, the, the, so there's three stages. The first stage is getting from 665 entries from 41 countries to a short list of 65, which you then go into a dark room for. a day to try and get to another shortlist, which will then be your then judge the medals upon. So, again, that's why that criteria is really important because we all were then pointing in the same direction. And the criteria that we had that we set out, what I set out from the beginning was based on, you know, is it can worthy? You know, we are in the most prestigious creativity festival, but we were looking for an original idea that was relevant in the real world. So none of the work made just for a festival. This is all about an original idea that tapped into the sports fan, tapped into a sports culture, work that delivered value and had to have a measurable impact. So how did it do creative effectiveness? How did it do from a commercial perspective?

[00:13:58] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: the boring bit, isn't it?

[00:14:00] Louise Johnson, FUSE: The, the boring but very essential bit. And then of course we were in the entertainment category, so we were looking and hoping to be entertained along the way as well.

[00:14:09] So we really used those five cre five criteria to get down to the short list. And if there was any. Potential kind of conflict on what we thought about a piece. We would always go back to the criteria on the wall to go, right, does it hit these, these five things?

[00:14:24] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay, so I'm just going to throw some questions out and you can jump in, I'm interested in. This idea of Canworthy and what did it mean to you, Ben? What's the, give me an idea of, of what you think when you see that, that phrase Canworthy.

[00:14:39] Cause I've heard it before and I'm interested in what it means.

[00:14:42] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, it's a good question. I think for me, at least Canworthy means it's, you know, it's born from creative thinking. It's that it feels original and fresh. Even if it's a new way to express something, it may have been something, but you're, it's applied in a different way. But I think the, the core, Definition of it for me is really just like bringing, you know, using creativity to solve real world problems. It's not just creativity for the sake of creativity, but it's actually tackling something, whether it's a brand, business, or human, or world problem, and actually solving it through creativity.

[00:15:13] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Did you have a favorite when you were sort of going through the shortlist? I'm not going to ask you whether, you know, about the winner and the winner, the winner was fantastic and we'll talk about that in a minute, but did you, does, does stuff just jump out at you? Is there a sort of visceral response that you get to creative work that you think, Oh, I really like that?

[00:15:30] And then you find reasons for, there's, there's always a criteria that you can sort of move it through, but it's also emotional, isn't it? It's not just a, there is that balance at play. What do you think, Azmir?

[00:15:40] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Oh, I'm probably thinking the same thing that I imagine Ben and Lou are thinking. Cause I feel like we all said this when we saw this work, the Ria Seltzer work, which particularly for sport, I think we all found interesting because it's, it's really a song. It's a, it's an, it's an anthem for a sports club, but it's the, the essence of the work that we were judging really was, was the song. But the moment that each of us first saw that work, we, we all just got goosebumps. The room got quiet. It, it's moving. It's touching. It tapped into not only the culture of a region, but also the, the fandom. Of, of a team and that's what, that's what sports is about. When you think about why we love sports and why we are fans of sports and, and the various teams that we love, it's, it gives us those goosebumps. and and that's the one for me is the one that it absolutely gave me goosebumps.

[00:16:43] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: And what is it? Can you explain it? For the, those of us that haven't seen it,

[00:16:46] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Sure. I, Ben might do a better job describing exactly what it is, but it's a it's a song. It's a, it's an anthem for a sports club. 

[00:16:53] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Rail Seltar.

[00:16:54] Asmirh Davis, Majority: yes. 

[00:16:55] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: you pronounce it. My Spanish is 

[00:16:57] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Real Seltzer? It's Real Seltzer, right? Is that Real Seltzer?

[00:17:03] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah. Rail Seltar is the club. Yeah. It was really an anthem just to kind of inspire the fans, you know, that sort of been languishing at the bottom of the league. And I think this was a rallying cry to get the fans kind of, you know, back and energized and around the, around the club. And I think it was, you know, that it was, it was the emotion in the room.

[00:18:51] And it was interesting because the first rounds of judging you're doing in isolation. And so it was one that, you know, I definitely wanted to, I was interested to see how the rest of the jury reacted to it and the conversation we were going to have around it, but just once we got into the room and just feeling it wasn't just me that had the goosebumps or the feeling of watching it, but it was all of us kind of had an emotional connection and none of us you know, Spanish.

[00:19:11] I mean, I think Ana was from Portugal, had the closest kind of gave us the context, at least from a regional context from, you know, again, she's not Spanish, but, you know, just that context of a region in Spain that had this rallying cry for this club. And it was just it was just an amazing piece. The question did come up.

[00:19:26] Could we award a song that can, and for me, you could absolutely could, because I think to Asmia's point, it just tapped into that fandom and that sort of energy and passion 

[00:19:34] Louise Johnson, FUSE: loved about it.

[00:19:35] was that they used like the modern and the traditional, so they brought in one of the biggest Spanish

[00:19:39] rappers, C Tangana, which I'm probably saying wrong, but so using him, modern, fresh, but then using the very traditional rhythms and lyrics of Galician folk music, so it was just that mix as well that really tapped into something fresh.

[00:19:54] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: And who is the client in this case?

[00:19:56] Louise Johnson, FUSE: It's a club. there's Centennial and, you know, it kind of galvanized all of the local community. The membership went up but it was, you know, imagine sort of the, the Champions League anthem. It was that moment when you saw the footage of the new anthem being played in the, in the stadium.

[00:20:12] It was just like incredible.

[00:20:14] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: And what was, in terms of the, can we award a song uh, can lion. Tell me about that bit of the conversation.

[00:20:20] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: I mean, the question, the question was asked in the room because you've got work that spanned, you know, big global campaigns, you had big activations, you had, you know, and then this was the simplicity, purity and the simplicity of a song or an anthem. And again, I think it was just a perfect representation of just the world of sport and the role of creativity within it.

[00:20:37] It can span an anthem, but it can also go into these. Net new experiences and, and and campaign. So, you know, for me it was, it was an absolute yes, but the question did come up in the jury room and I think we were, we were all aligned because it all sort of tapped into the emotion too. I think it was the one piece that had the most emotion into it too.

[00:20:53] And I think that's where, you know, the power of creativity, bringing emotion and, and, and visceral reactions from people was key as well.

[00:21:00] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Cause you can sort of see, I could see like a Turner prize, you know, when the Turner prize is announced and then people are like, this isn't art, you know, I can imagine cross the advertising, you know, a marketing industry, there'll be people, what?

[00:21:11] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Well, it had a commercial impact and had a fan impact. You know, we gave it a gold. It was a fantastic piece of work, original idea that tapped into, into the sports fan and culture. It ticked all the boxes.

[00:21:23] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay. So what else? Give me another one.

[00:21:24] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: One that comes to mind for me is, is, was work for for 7 Eleven. It was called Always Open. 

[00:21:30] And it sort of tapped into, you know, being here in the U. S. It was definitely, I saw this work and I thought it was brilliant when I saw it. And then to see it in the, in the category was great. But for those that don't know, it was really a piece of work that was just a showcasing and a perfect example of a brand that's just brilliant.

[00:21:55] You know, not just in sport culture, but it's paying attention to it at all levels. So it's not just showing up in big kind of calendar moments of just naturally where sport plays out. And so in this case, it was for American football, but it was paying attention to the conversations and all the sort of, you know, the other aspects of sport on and off the, off the field.

[00:22:12] So, you know, Jamar Chase, who was getting frustrated because he was, you know, wide receiver, not getting the ball thrown to him. As much as he wanted or as people expected and in the media conference, you know, throughout the line and I won't swear, but throughout the line that I'm always open, I'm open.

[00:22:27] Like call me seven 11. I'm always open. 

[00:22:29] So, and then it was just within 24, 48 hours, the brand had responded and created a line of merch and just tapped into, you Jamar Chase and connected with him and got him to wear 7 Eleven gear. This merch line that they'd created, you know, in the tunnel for the next game. And it sort of blew up and put the merch on sale. So it was just a perfect example of just being a part of culture and not just showing up at a Superbowl spot or, you know, the the big moments throughout sport, but actually just being there 24 seven and having a, an always on kind of approach to. to sport and sport culture.

[00:22:58] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: So something that, you know, you've all referenced is this and that question of, you know, the brand in culture and obviously culture is a big word, but what are we talking about there? Are we talking here about, it needs to catch light authentically amongst fans. It needs to, cause we all know the games of organic and spend and how these things work behind the scenes and things that appear to have caught fire as a, as a meme are actually manipulated and, you know, whatever.

[00:23:26] So the people listening will be aware of all of those types of tropes, but give us a sense of what you mean by culture. And is it, is it sort of, broader than, okay, that we need to see a response amongst sports fans?

[00:23:39] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, for me, I mean, I think it's just goes, it's just sports marketing has gone far beyond or well beyond just throwing your logo on something to be associated with sport. And I think it's just showing up in ways that are meaningful to, to your point, or that is meaningful for fans and goes beyond having a halftime spot.

[00:23:55] And I think there's just so much of sport happens on and off the field track. You know, pitch, whatever you want to call it, is, is, you know, it is those moments where the players are, you know, walking into the, through the tunnel, it is the, the conversations that happen from Monday to, to Saturday between games, it's the, the media interviews after the games, it's all these things that happen around sport that are just, sport is 24 7, even if it's Off season, on season, I think it's brands playing a role in those moments, I think that it just shows the authenticity to sport, to the fans, 

[00:24:27] Louise Johnson, FUSE: I think that was a nice nice piece around. One of the awards that we gave to you was around humour as well. And NFL did a great piece around the table read and it featured all the star players. And as they read the script for the season, they were really mocking all their internet peers.

[00:24:44] Conspiracy theories, you know, the, Oh, the NFL have just made this all up. You know, they basically scripted the season. And I think that was quite nice. And so a rights holder taking it upon themselves to kind of listen to those conversations and then play it back on themselves. So it was a really funny piece of, A, it was great to be entertained.

[00:25:02] And humor was a big focus this year for Cannes Lions as a whole, but also as a specific category within sports. But again, I just think that was a nice way of like listening to what the fans are saying. And. Using that in a different way.

[00:25:15] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Yeah, I love that example, culture is really kind of, there's two parts to it. I think that it oftentimes is, you know, tapping into the, the way of life or the behaviors or things that manifest out of a specific community or area or region, but it also is the things that are organically. Within the broader zeitgeist, right? And that the NFL example is an example of the latter. It's you know, this conspiracy around the NFL being scripted had been something that had been circling around the broader zeitgeist for a while, and instead of trying to even combat that, they took it and played into it and made it part of their own narrative.

[00:26:03] And we did into every part of their storyline for the entire season. And that just like, that's genius to me because you're, instead of forcing yourself into something, it's like, let's play along. Let it, let's give more attention to the things that the fans and the world is already talking about.

[00:26:23] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: It's interesting you say that about that humor was a sort of direction across the awards. Cause I mean, it's a point we've made on this podcast before, cause we've done, you know, previous years of Cairns and there aren't many laughs on that shortlist, you know, quite often. It's quite, it's quite earnest.

[00:26:37] It's quite purpose driven. It's quite difficult to get to the sort of entertainment, the funny bit, which again, is an important part. It's not. everything, but it's felt like it had gone away where people were making sort of grand social statements about using sport as a platform. But it's, I'm, I'm encouraged that there was that a sort of direction from above.

[00:26:58] Is that something that they said, right. And you know, let's get some funny stuff on this list. Is that, is that where it came from?

[00:27:03] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Yeah, I think, you know, from the organiser's perspective, I think we're very conscious that Purpose had taken a big role over the last, you know, five or six years. And I was one of the jury members in the first sport jury, which Ben was president of then from Oxford at the time, and that was 2021. And the work was incredibly heavy.

[00:27:23] It was all purpose led. Now, of course, it was reflective of where we were sitting in the global pandemic. So a lot of the work, of course, reflected that. But I think there was a big focus on, yeah, let's get, let's, there's still really interesting stories that need to be told and real life problems, as Ben mentioned earlier, actually, let's, let's have creativity with a purpose.

[00:27:44] Let's just not like have purpose for purpose sake. So I think that was the change. And then actively encouraged, but also I think people are just producing more. You know, more lighter approach to sports at the moment as well, which is really celebrating performance.

[00:27:58] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, I mean, I the other thing was our jury with the entertainment lines, too. So just being genuinely entertaining and humor is just one of those levers that can be pulled for to be genuinely entertaining. And I think, you know, to lose point, I think the last few years, I think we've seen a slight uptick in in terms of just fun and humor kind of creeping back into the work across the board, not just in sport.

[00:28:18] And I think, you know, I think this year the lines had you know, 12 or 13 categories had humor as a. As a subcategory, including sport. And so it was great to see work, even in the sports space that was tapping into humor. And we saw a number of submissions that were, that were great. I mean, it's just uplifting to put a smile on people's faces.

[00:28:33] It's as important as some of the other things that not just being purpose driven, but just also, you know, solving some of those things, but also having ways to put a smile on people's faces is as important at times as well.

[00:28:44] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay. Let's talk about the, I've got a couple that I want to talk about specifically, but let's talk about the winner. I also want to talk about we are Ayenda. Which is a sort of stunning piece of work. So, and I've got loads of questions about those two. Let's talk about the winner first of all. So Lou, who won and why, and give us that.

[00:29:01] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Yeah, sure. So we were delighted to give Orange the Grand Prix for women's football. And this was given because I think it really reflects a really exciting future for women's sports marketing. And the campaign brilliantly just captured the pheno, phenomenal rise of women's football. And they did that through creative storytelling and the use of technology as well.

[00:29:25] And by doing so, they managed to showcase the excitement of the French Women's National team. really challenging those outdated stereotypes around women's football. And I think because they did it in such a creative way, they captured not just sports fans, they captured widespread conversations around the world. One of our jury was from Singapore and she said, of course, you know, orange is nowhere in Asia. It's not a brand, but everybody knew who orange was because of this piece of work. It traveled that far and transcended and yeah, the passions, as well the sports fans. But also, it was just that really beautiful piece, that great football is great football, regardless of what gender. And I think for us, that was really important. And we just wanted to celebrate that cultural moment that we're having, is that women's sport is on the rise. And actually, you can use sports Women's sports now, not just to tell a parody story, which of course is still incredibly important, but it should and could be used as a creative storytelling vehicle.

[00:30:26] And a number of pieces did that really well as well. You know, Nike with their What the Football did a great job of that. The iFood, audience delivery to the great piece of that. And we'll come on to, to we are under in a second, but I think for us, it was just an incredible piece of work from Orange and we really wanted to award it because it reflected where we are and where we should be going as an industry.

[00:30:48] I think just a last point on this as well, out of the 21 medals that were given, A third were given to women's sports, which we are incredibly proud of, and I hope that that continues. There was one interesting conversation that came up, and I think this will be a debate that we have over the coming months. This was echoed in our jury, it was echoed by Peptico, and also by female athletes like Flojo Johnson. Should we just call it sports and drop the women's bit and that's a big big focus of what people were talking about So, so yeah, but anyway, that's where we awarded the women's football piece by Orange.

[00:31:25] Fantastic piece of work

[00:31:27] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay. Let's get the, let's get everyone's views on it. Who wants to go jump first?

[00:31:48] Asmirh Davis, Majority: I can hop in. I mean, I, this is a piece and I said it in the jury room too that when I saw it out in the world previous to even being on the jury, I got so incredibly excited that it was, So well done. It was beautifully made, but also the timeliness of it, like, that's, that's another part of why I was I was really proud to be able to award this piece of work for the Grand Prix for, for this year.

[00:32:19] Is that I think it makes us so statement about where we are in sports and sort of like what the next, what's the evolution of sports moving forward. And that piece is, is a great manifestation of it, in my opinion. Particularly as it relates to going back to what Lou just said, like drop the women's part of it.

[00:32:37] It's. It's sports, right? It's just as exciting. It's just as entertaining as men's and it's time that we started treating it that way. I just thoroughly enjoyed it, had shared it out to my entire network. It was top of mind. It was so well done. It's also too, you know, I know they use technology, but the simplicity of the idea, you is genius.

[00:33:02] I love simple concepts, right? Just like, we're going to make a highlight reel that is entertaining, that's fast paced, that's energetic, that's going to get you going, that's going to get you tingling, and you're going to think it's one thing, and then we're going to flip it on you, right? And tell a, tell a different story.

[00:33:21] I just love the simplicity of it and how well it was executed.

[00:33:25] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, just to build off that, I think it was the simplicity and that does, you know, use technology, but in all the right ways, you know, it was to serve the idea, not, you know, trying to find an idea to, to bring some technology in. And I think to all the points made, I think agree in terms of, you know, just removing the qualifier of women's sport, men's sport, it's just celebrating sport and showcasing it. I think it was set in the jury room too. It caught this piece piece specifically, just caught people in their bias, whether you. You know, realized it or not, it sort of caught people out in their sort of biased thinking of men's and men's and women's sport. And I think the other thing that played out into it, for me, at least, was played into its sort of success was the sequencing and the the orchestration of the two pieces.

[00:34:07] So there was the, The piece that was just looked like it was a piece celebrating men's sport men's football team, the men's French team. And then a week or two later was, then they dropped the, the longer piece, which was actually the piece that you saw and were familiar with. And then just that was the reveal of the aha moment of like, you know, catching you when you bias in that moment.

[00:34:25] So it was sort of like the, you know, the preheating the oven, so to speak. And then sort of the, the dropping of that final piece was sort of like a brilliance in, its in its choreography and its execution as well. Mm-Hmm.

[00:34:34] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: It's also quite an interesting, it's quite a hard one to copy or steal, or, you know, the idea is now out there. And if you do it, it's so obviously a, you know, let's call it an homage. That's what's quite interesting about, you know, awarded work is it sort of becomes canon and then people start to nick bits of it.

[00:34:56] But actually I can't see how you would do that in this case. It was quite of its moment, you know, the AI element to everyone's talking about AI, you know, so there's a few themes in there. that sort of come together at the right time. So I wonder if it's like in a year's time, I can't see anyone else coming forward and say, Oh yeah, that's a version of the orange ad.

[00:35:14] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Yeah.

[00:35:15] Louise Johnson, FUSE: with the AI piece, I think it's quite interesting because they only use like 10 percent of the work was used but was delivered by AI. Majority of the work was just done through visual effects. So I think that's a quite big misconception that this is all delivered by AI technology. Actually, only a small percentage of it, they never took the work. It's, you know, 14 months going through all of the different footage, sorry, six months to go through all the different footage. And it was incredible feast of actually manually trying to get the right pieces. So, and I think this was a trend as well.

[00:35:45] Everybody in Cannes was talking about AI and everybody expected AI to be present across the board and all the jurors and the presidents walked out and went kind of what AI you know, we didn't talk about it once You know, a couple of days that we were all together and of course there was AI used and you had to disclaim it in your entry.

[00:36:05] That was new for this year to, you know, The organizers felt that if you've used AI, you need to put it into your entry. So it's fair to everybody, but actually we weren't specifically looking for it. We were still looking for those human stories, a great idea. And actually AI was then powering those. So it wasn't a huge amount. that has actually used AI, so number one, but number two, it was very much the support act, the original idea or human story, that was the star striker, essentially, and AI was just supporting.

[00:36:36] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: I mean, while we're on it, I mean, it's interesting because you had Elon Musk, one of the headline, you know, people saying it will be. After creative jobs. And there's a sort of, and then all the commentary was, Oh, you know, fear, the icy chill ran through Cannes and the, you know, the creative industry. Ben, what do you think about this?

[00:36:55] Is that a live conversation where you are? Is that, you know, is that something that you're obviously you're conscious of, but what's your 

[00:37:01] view on 

[00:37:02] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: it?

[00:37:03] is. It is. It's definitely something that we're talking about and we're using and we're, you know, building partnerships with and leveraging when it makes sense. I think it's just not at scale yet. It's coming. We're all getting prepared for it. And we're you know, like I said, building partnerships and using, you know, tools.

[00:37:17] Safe sandboxes. I think that the legal side of things are still going to play catch up in terms of how it can be commercially used in a lot of work. So, but we're all realistic and we know it's coming and it's going to change a lot of things. Is it coming for creative idea, creative people's jobs?

[00:37:32] Maybe. It depends on what role and what aspects you're talking about. I think there's still a role and I don't see AI. Taking the jobs of, you know, taking the role of like original thought and coming up with net new ideas. I may be proven wrong down the, down the line, so don't quote me on it. But at the same time, like, I think there's a role for AI to kind of, streamline and and speed certain aspects of the creative process up for sure.

[00:37:55] And I think they're the ones that are really you know, Probably the most fearful, but I think there's still, you know, the, the core nature of AI is still built on historical data. So I'm still looking back to try and create something that new and even then, so it's not truly net new. So I think that original idea and using creative thought to solve some of the problems that our, our clients are facing is still for the majority a human based task.

[00:38:18] So where you know, we're still in the role of creativity and original thought and solving problems with net new ideas. And so until AI can take those, I think we're, you know, there's, there's elements of our role that are, you know, elements of our business that are still going to be core to humans.

[00:38:32] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Yeah, it's interesting that, isn't it? That's a good point, you know, that it's, it's coming from the past, but then so is creativity, isn't it? Creativity is, you know, is juxtaposing two ideas and coming up with something else. sort of see how it might get there. 

[00:38:47] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Sometimes different applications, right? It's like, you know, an idea that was born in this category and now you're applying it to that. Sometimes creativity can be that. So yeah, it's interesting. I mean, again, we're, we're playing with it and I think it's the power of the two. It's the power of humans plus AI is actually where the real superpower is.

[00:39:01] Cause I think there's still you know, even when we get into conversations with our clients, it's still having a brand lens. And a broader world lens and a culture lens, like, like as Mia was saying earlier, like just making sure that things are true to culture and reflective of the world we live in today, as opposed to what we lived in, you know, 2, 3, 5, 10, 50 years ago, like it's not we need to be sort of forward looking.

[00:39:23] And so just making sure that we're, we're able to have those lenses and it's hard for, you know, AI right now to have a perspective of what a good idea for Adidas looks like. It's not great at decision making, even though it's getting better. It's still going to present things, but not know exactly which way to go.

[00:39:38] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: it'll never come for podcast. So, you know, it'd be okay. That's not true. I've got one other point before we move on from the orange app, because I think it's really interesting the so and lose on the unofficial part of the WhatsApp group. And it's about 200 odd people, but it's senior people have been on the podcast.

[00:39:57] And we'll get you guys if you're welcome to come on it. It was really interesting when the, when the ad first came out, it got passed around and everyone, it was really buzzy and it felt like, Oh God, this is, this is incredible. And everyone was, you know, that went through that conversation. And I've been thinking about what, are there any counters to it?

[00:40:16] What was the, what was the sort of, is there, were there any responses that pushed back against the, just the wall of love that was around it? The one that stood out was, is this still looking at women's sport through a male lens? Is this, is this, is the comparison that's inherent within the ad, are we, is that of a moment?

[00:40:37] And are we at some point going to just go, right, actually, to your point, it's just sport. We don't need to prove, make that point anymore. It felt like there's a bit of me that thought, we're still arguing with. Jerry Barton. And that's a, that's a, that's a very English reference, but that's just, just that gammon faced lobby that just don't like women's football.

[00:41:03] And there's a culture war there that is, you know, obvious, but this plays to that and is like a yaha, gotcha for that debate. And I wonder if I want to get beyond that, or do we just still have to keep fighting it? 

[00:41:21] I say, I say, I say, we as a middle aged white bloke, but you know,

[00:41:26] Louise Johnson, FUSE: I think it's a really good point. It definitely came up. However, I think women's sport is on this evolution, this journey. And I think, of course, it compared men and women. We don't want that moving forward. And I almost feel like it was part of that journey. I think it was such a crescendo, the piece of work that we can all sit there and go, right, yeah, actually, let's have this debate.

[00:41:50] Should it just be called sport? not women's sport. So actually, do you need to have that piece of work to then be able to move forward to the next stage of the evolution? So I think from my perspective, I think it was noted, but I think because of the way that it was crafted, the way that it did, the impact it had, we all still felt that it was a great piece of work that moved forward the industry.

[00:42:11] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Azmir, what do you think?

[00:42:13] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Yeah, I agree. I think it, it had a duality to it too. Like for those of the, for those that have the bias, right, it pointed that bias out very clearly in a very much a like, aha, gotcha. But for those that didn't, It was a celebration. And it's like, yeah, I'm not, we know like this, this is awesome. This is a thing.

[00:42:37] So to Lou's point, it started a conversation by bringing those from each side, like together, because we can agree that what we saw, whether or not you, You know, had the bias originally or not, what we saw was that women's football is fantastic and it's entertaining and it's riveting and it's just as athletic, if not more.

[00:42:59] And it's all of these things. So let's talk about it differently.

[00:43:03] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, I think that that's what made it so powerful. I think it caught out the people that still have that bias and it just celebrated to, to Asmi's point, I'm just building off it. It's just, it had a moment. And I think it, for me, at least it's the. It was the full stop on the argument. Like, it feels like we can, you know, can we move to your point Richard, can we move past this?

[00:43:22] Like the 

[00:43:22] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Can move 

[00:43:23] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: for a number of years. Can we move on beyond this? Can this, can this be the period, the full stop in the period on the argument for like women's sport is as good as men's sport? And we talked about it as a jury too, like, can we use this as a blueprint or can we use this as a moment to move past that?

[00:43:37] Women's sport forward and celebrate it as just, you know, again, removing the qualifier of men's or women's can we just celebrate sport once and for all, whether it be women's or men's or whatever. So, yeah, hoping, you know, that it's sort of like the last lingering thing of just like keeping this sort of comparison of men's to women's sport, but just it felt like the final point on the argument that we've been having for way too long.

[00:43:57] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay. Brilliant. We are Ayenda. 

[00:44:00] Someone just explain what this is as succinctly as we can, because it's, it's a, it's a fantastic piece of work.

[00:44:06] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Ashmeer, you go for it. It's

[00:44:07] Asmirh Davis, Majority: No. .Yeah. I, I love this. So, it's, it's actually an another piece of work that was debated in the room because it's like, well it's, it's really a film, right? And is it a, is it about sports or is it about something else? So it's, it's a documentary. I think it was was it 30 minutes long or so? That's a long documentary about a youth women's football team in Afghanistan and their journey to escape the country when the Taliban took over I believe in 2021. And at the center of it though, is how they used WhatsApp is their primary tool of communication. amongst the group to navigate and communicate what was needed and coordinate logistics to get out of the country safely. Because of the privacy features within WhatsApp, it allowed them to do that safely without fear of getting caught. Um, with so much being at stake, their life being primarily one of just again, like, What an unexpected way that has sport at the core, but also culturally resonant because it's speaking from the lived experience of a very specific community and region of the world and the, the brand it's of what's at being, you know, Organically woven into the story and telling an important story about women's sports and to that region, but showcasing how their features and what they brought to their lives. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to discuss that in the context of all the other things that we were discussing. You know, you go from talking about like 7 Eleven t shirts and chains to this like really powerful and emotional, important documentary. And all of which, you know, Should and and can exist and are important to what sports means it to me.

[00:47:06] It just showcases how sports permeates so many different parts of our lives, and we don't even realize it. And I think the the thing that was probably most heavily debated in the room. Was almost like, is this right for the category? If you all agree with that, it's like, this feels like we all agree.

[00:47:28] This is a beautiful body of work. Is this right for the category? And I think where we landed was yes. And again, it goes back to this, like sports permeates so much of our lives and the way that you as brands can partner within the sports world doesn't have to be with the formulas and the conventions that we're used to seeing.

[00:47:49] It doesn't have to be a big campaign. It doesn't have to be your logo splattered on the back of a jersey. You, you can. You can tell an important story that's with sport at its center but also one that helps you tell your brand story relative to sports as well.

[00:48:07] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: What do we think about that form question? It's the same as the, you know, can it be a song, Ben, you go.

[00:48:12] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: I think I mean, I think the film for me was just, it was great. And I think it was a great example of like when you put your product and even one feature of a product at the center of the story to be told the power of privacy, even from a WhatsApp perspective, my, and to be fully transparent, I was on a bit of a rollercoaster with this piece.

[00:48:29] I thought it was a great piece of work. I was struggling, not struggling, but I was going back and forth, whether it was Much of sport as a, as a human, as a broader human story. And so my internal dialogue, you know, got me on board ultimately when I asked the question of like, you know, what would this mean to sport if this, if this women's team didn't survive or this women's team didn't escape Afghanistan and that, and the, and the, So repercussions and the outcome of that would be catastrophic.

[00:48:56] And so for me, it sort of grounded it, you know, as I was going back and forth as a jury member, grounded in sport, even if it did feel like just a more of a human rights story on first pass. It's sort of, I got there over time as I sort of thought about it more and more. That it was ultimately a sports story because these, you know, the future of sport from you know, an entire nation's women's team would be potentially wiped off the planet, off the planet was, was catastrophic.

[00:49:20] And, and sort of the power of that kind of hit me when I was like, okay, this is still true to sport, which was, you know, why it got what it got. It was just an amazing piece.

[00:49:30] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: There's a, there's also the, there's the, is it sport question is I had written down. So the form of the documentary and the, in the medium, I wondered if it changed the nature of, you know, is this still marketing is documentary is essentially a branded documentary You know, on the basis of privacy and I want, I started to wonder whether or not that's okay, whether or not actually flagging it as, you know, how do you present this to the world is this is a piece of marketing for Meta who are not known for privacy, but WhatsApp is their brand.

[00:50:11] And so this is a, you know, I can see all sorts of journalistic red flags were going off here. Because I thought, actually, this doesn't feel like marketing. This feels like a sort of, you know, a documentary that I'm going to watch on Amazon or Netflix. And I should be very aware that it's paid for and directed by Meta.

[00:50:34] So that was, that was my thing. There's the sport bit, but there's also what the form does to how you just, I mean, it must, no wonder it took nine hours in that room. But how you get to how this fits into category, I'm not sure. But anyway. What do you think Lou 

[00:50:49] Asmirh Davis, Majority: It's interesting that you bring that point up. And that's that's why I love that we had such a diverse jury room, because I feel like that at least something along that lines was brought up. And that's when when Echo brought up the fact that, you know, just from, she didn't just have the regional context of Afghanistan, but as it relates to China, she was saying that, It's a known fact culturally that if you're going to communicate that WhatsApp is the most secure and it's even so much so that it's banned in the region, right?

[00:51:23] Because they can't get into it. It's so secure and it protects people's privacy. So it's just, you know, having that context is like, okay, Well, yeah. So that's, that's what makes this like, it's a, it's real. It's a, it's a real thing. That even though, yeah, it's, it's branded, it's, it's a feature, it's promoting this part of the feature. But it's also the thing that made this team gave them the ability to communicate safely to, to do what they needed to do. So, yeah. Yep.

[00:51:59] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: I love, you know, I love the watching it. And I mean, we're, we're living in a world where, you know, Barbie nearly won an Oscar. So that's a, you know, there's a sort of where your, this award room, where, what next year is there a time limit on these things?

[00:52:16] Is it, can it be a two hour feature that just sits in the cinema and you know, is that, is that all up for grabs? And are you comparing that with. The classic 30 second TV ad spot and a piece of digital marketing that, you know, is very effective, but a bit dull, but does enormous work. So it's, it's very difficult.

[00:52:35] So are you doing it next year, Lou, the judging?

[00:52:38] I would love to, but I think they have to be fair and mix it up to different regions and things like that. So, I would, I'm really excited about 2025. I think 2024 was such a good pool of work that was, yeah, just surprised us actually with how much great stuff there was. In terms of formats it's a really good point because, you know, we did debate some work saying, oh this is film, surely this should be in the film lions, or actually this is audio, why isn't this in, you know, the audio lions, but again I think it's just, you know, to Ben's point earlier, it's really reflective of how sport shows up and manifests in so many different parts of our lives, whether that is on documentaries or whether you're listening to it in the stadium, so I think. You know, if I look at four years ago, the entries were very different. It was either ads, it was branded content, and it was maybe like social posts. You know, now we're in 2024, it's really diversified. So actually like, I think that's great. I think that should be where we're going and looking forward to seeing what else comes into that 25 awards.

[00:53:40] Louise Johnson, FUSE: But yeah, I'd love to be in the judging panel next year, but not allowed. I don't think, I

[00:53:44] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, just on the

[00:53:45] on the 

[00:53:45] format, I was just going to say on the format question, I think, you know, you brought it up the Barbie thing, but I used to reference the Lego movie. Is it, is it a great animated movie or is it the longest ad you've ever seen? Sort of thing. So I think the world of kind of like advertising, especially in our category was just entertainment.

[00:54:02] It could be a you know, it could be a film, and we work pretty closely with Apple through Meteor Arts Lab, part of the TBWA family, and they do a lot of, you know, we developed Shot on iPhone, and Shot on iPhone has moved from 30 second ads and billboards to short films in different regions around different things, and so we've kind of gone into 45, 60 minute films that you know, as much advertising and entertainment as the 32nd spots that, you know, came before it.

[00:54:27] So I think there's that world for me, at least I didn't question the format in an Ayenda necessarily. It's more, I just seen that sort of happening more broadly. I don't think any categories ever said the requirements, the 32nd films or whatever, I think just the world has just evolved to think about stories being told in longer formats and what it's done is actually Genuinely make people make it more entertaining than 30 second interruption.

[00:54:51] So we're seeing sort of, I would say, I would argue better content because of it.

[00:54:55] Louise Johnson, FUSE: think just the last point on that, Richard, as well, is that, you know, there was. There was so much sport and there was so much sport like off, as we were saying earlier, off schedule as well as on schedule. And I think it's just reflective of how robust and buoyant our industry is at the moment. And that sport is being used by big brand advertisers because it is an effective tool in the marketing armory versus, you know, in the face of media fragmentation.

[00:55:18] And it's a huge industry and it's going to continue to rise in the next 10 years. And we saw that, you know, I think it was like 28 percent of all those entries, the 665 came from FMCG brands. And then the shortlist was actually 27 percent of that. So, you know, sport is a big part of our lives. It's, you know, the few appointment to view live events still there. And with more fans, you get more attention and more investment. And people realize that this is an effective tool to market their brands.

[00:55:49] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: What about the, there's a, how much of the work comes from within sponsorship? I mean, this is called Unofficial Partners podcast, but the official, it's a joke on official partnership. And sometimes that's seen as a sort of confining thing. It's, you know, people just say, okay, we bought the rights to this.

[00:56:06] This is a, this is the small amount that you can do creatively because you'll piss off the rights holder. We're in an Olympic year. We've got the Euros going on. A lot of the work is a bit meh because it's all very stuff that we've seen in the past. I'm very rarely excited by Olympic. Work, if I'm honest, because it feels like they're, they've got the IOC's lawyers in the back of their heads at the whole time when there's a creative decision, you know, to be made.

[00:56:28] So just let's unpick that for a minute. What do we think about that as the, just the relationship between creative and sports sponsorship?

[00:56:35] Louise Johnson, FUSE: There was actually quite a lot of work, which wasn't there this year, guys, that was unofficial, no, partners. So it was actually, I was surprised how much great work as well had come through from that. 

[00:56:46] Asmirh Davis, Majority: I was just gonna say, I feel like the best work came from the unofficial sponsors. 

[00:56:52] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Yay.

[00:56:53] Asmirh Davis, Majority: you know, and, and even, and even the work that did come under, you know, a banner of some larger sponsorship. Those, that work that was awarded was, it was a sponsorship that was activated in some sort of creative or non conventional way. Right? So, I don't remember the name of the case, but the, the, the name see her name Jersey, they like just things like that. Right. I think that was that Molson.

[00:57:26] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Well said, yeah, well said. They basically switched the branding. So on the ice hockey jersey of the women's team, they put Molson's, Molson's brand in a different place so that they should therefore showcase the women's name because obviously that hair, you know, hid it. So again, just using sort of smart ways of creative, creative to do something different.

[00:57:48] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Yeah. Yes. I don't know. That was my observation. I felt like it was either unofficial partnerships where you have to find a creative way to Support and be a part of the sport conversation or those sponsorships that did it in interesting, interesting and non conventional way.

[00:58:05] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Yeah, exactly. I was going to say you know, it's just gone beyond, you know, putting the logo on a jersey and calling it a day. And I think the, the creative opportunities or the best creative work I saw was sort of outside of those big tentpole sport moments. So, you know, outside the big Olympic partnerships or sponsorships outside the big, you know, whatever it is.

[00:58:22] And I think to, to, to the point made earlier, I think it just. You know, it just has, for whatever reason, has less eyeballs. It has less lawyers involved. It has whatever. I think you just get the more creative work sort of having more kind of creativity and freedom in those spaces to, to do the, the work that's a bit more reactive.

[00:58:40] And in the moment without the sort of the four year kind of roadmap of what are we going to do and getting everybody's, you know, opinion kind of. And so I think the purity of creativity kind of shone in those moments, you know, inside and in those smaller moments that was just exciting to see,

[00:58:56] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Richard, of course, official sponsorships are very important. You don't want to do me out of the job, do you?

[00:59:02] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: You've got, you've got more chairs than Ikea, so you don't need any more jobs. There's a, there's a the, I think sometime, and we've done loads on it, and this is just like a parlor game in sports sponsorship, you know, the official partner, Ambush being, you know, the people talk about being sort of ambushed and there is something I mean, it used to be the conversation was you have to try harder.

[00:59:23] If you haven't got the official rights, you have to come up with a creative idea. It's about winning with the idea rather than the rights that you've paid through the nose to then appear. And then there's a right old rail where Riccardo fought it. C's Ambush everywhere, you know, in terms of he used to run Coke and Visa's marketing platform.

[00:59:39] So he's in break, you know, this is all about, this is what we bought. And Pepsi are trying to crack in, or there's all Nike, a major event or Paddy power. There's a whole game there about, we haven't got the rights and we're going to show up and we're going to take the mic. So there's a sort of, there's a mentality to it, which I quite.

[00:59:57] Like, but I, you know, to Lou's point, official sponsors are very important and they pay the bills and that's where the money comes from and it goes into the governing bodies, et cetera, et cetera, I think when that idea hits somewhere like CAN, I think it starts to break apart a bit, you know, people don't really care.

[01:00:15] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: you know, I think just a

[01:00:16] lot of it falls into the, into the bucket of expected, you know, it's a lot of, a lot of the stuff just ends up being so safe that it feels like you've seen it before in those sort of big official kind of moments and so that's where it sort of, you know, maybe gets dinged a little bit at some way like a can because it sort of just suffers from the, you know, The, you know, sometimes a lack of originality in those, in those pieces that sort of just goes through the, through the machine of, you know, lawyers and a hundred people with different differing opinions.

[01:00:41] And so it just, everything seems to get watered down. It just falls into that, that bucket from a, from a can, at least a judging perspective.

[01:00:48] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: I've got one final question. I'm very conscious of all your time. You're very busy people. And it's a question about the, there's Can, but also the sports bit within Can, which is is it a sort of can you tell the difference? What's the, the, the bit that I find really interesting is the international element to it.

[01:01:05] And you mentioned at the beginning, they're 41 countries. Is there anything to discern? Are different, Things happening in different bits of the world. It always used to be Argentina for some reason, there's this hotspot of creativity, Iceland. You've got all these, you know, great ideas flowing from anywhere, everywhere.

[01:01:19] And sometimes marketing is seen as a bit of a monoculture that it's, you know, and particularly Cannes, there's a lot of the same people. Wandering around saying hello and slapping each other on the back. Tell us about the international bit, cause that feels to me like the most interesting element of this.

[01:01:39] Louise Johnson, FUSE: think that's why I enjoyed Cairns so much this year, because it was just focusing on the work and having that international perspective, rather than, you know, the people slapping each other on the back conversations. I think the work this year was really international, very strong from Brazil, the US, UK. What we didn't see, and this is a big opportunity for those markets that are listening, hardly anything from APAC. Really, you know, with Asia specifically, there was hardly anything that came through. So I don't know whether that is because of, you know, Cannes is not so big from that region, and they have their own version of it called Spikes. But it did feel like a certain creativity is lacking from that region, where it was very, very strong in Brazil and South America. 

[01:02:20] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: You'd have thought there'd be a, does that include India in terms of the, there's not much around the IPL or anything, was that a generator of stuff?

[01:02:28] Louise Johnson, FUSE: was some really great work from India from Gatorade called Turf, which again was enabling participation in Mumbai and trying to get using sort of patches of space to get more people playing sports, which was incredible. But that was, I think the only piece from India that got through on the shortlist.

[01:02:45] So again, You're right, you think, oh my goodness, how big Cricket is in that region, why isn't there more work coming through? But Gatorade was the only people that embraced that, so I think anybody's looking at 2025 there's a big opportunity to double down in creativity, but also just put the work through as well from that region.

[01:03:02] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Okay. Brilliant. Well, listen, I'm really, really chuffed that we got this group together. I'm really pleased with the conversation we had and thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. We had a genuinely. I don't think we've had as much, you know, as broader geographical spread on one podcast. I'm quite pleased.

[01:03:16] I'm quite pleased the the system held up for as long as it did. But 

[01:03:21] Ben, thank you very much for your time.

[01:03:23] Ben Williams, TBWA/Worldwide: Thanks for having

[01:03:24] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Asmir, thank you so much for your time.

[01:03:25] Asmirh Davis, Majority: Thank you.

[01:03:26] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: And Louise Johnson, thank you very much for your time.

[01:03:29] Louise Johnson, FUSE: Thank you, Richard.

[01:03:30] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: Till next year. ​